


Space never felt so empty

by starbirdrampant (ineasako22)



Series: Tumblr writing prompts [8]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Gen, tumblr prompt fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-30
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-09-20 20:38:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9513338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ineasako22/pseuds/starbirdrampant
Summary: Leia finds something after BespinA response to a prompt bynicollinion tumblr."send me a made-up fic title and i’ll tell you what i would write to go with it" tumblr prompt





	

_Home One_ felt empty without the _Falcon_ there.

Oh who was she kidding, _Home One_ felt empty without _Han_ there.

Luke was still in the infirmary – turned out that falling through the ventilation shafts of a floating mining city was a bad idea even with the Force as a crutch – so Leia let him be. But Chewie had gone with Lando, scouting ahead to find a new base for the Rebellion, which left Leia in her quarters with nothing but one of Han’s old jacket and a recharging C3P0 for company.

Leia’s gaze caught on the jacket, draped casually over the back of the only chair in her quarters – how like Han to just leave his things everywhere. Ancestors help anyone who cluttered up the _Falcon_ , but outside the ship he was a slob – and after only a moment’s deliberation (and a quick glance at 3P0), she pulled the jacket off the chair and pressed her nose against the seams.

The rich scent of old leather and blaster oil that rose from the jacket was familiar enough to bring pinpricks of tears to her eyes, though she hid them by carefully laying the jacket on the bed and folding it so it wouldn’t wrinkle.

“We’ll get him back,” she muttered to no one. “We’ll get him back.”

The durasteel walls didn’t answer.

She straightened the jacket one last time, smoothing her fingers over the sleeves and swearing when her hands shuddered enough to pull one of the sleeves out of line. Sudden fury – at herself, at the Empire, at _Vader_ – curdled in her stomach and with a choked cry she snatched at the jacket and raised it to fling at the door–

A hair clip hit her in the face.

Leia sputtered, rubbing at her smarting lip where the hair clip had fallen, before looking down at the small – yet ridiculously heavy – clip lying on the floor by her feet. The design was familiar, geometric but with an organic quality that mimicked the spiral caves of Alderaan’s northern hemis–

She nearly dropped the clip – she did drop the jacket – and staggered until the backs of her thighs hit the bed, clutching the hair clip close to her chest.

It was made of Alderaanian silver, she realized, as she watched the overhead lights reflect off the metal with the bluish tint so common to jewelry from her homeworld. The design, spirals upon spirals, had been so common as to be considered almost a tourist piece, though now she supposed it would be a collectors item.

...It looked like the piece she’d gotten her mother at ten years old.

Suddenly frantic, she snatched the jacket from the floor and shoved her hands into the pockets, pulling out two depleted blaster charges, a handful of lint, some credits, a data chip, and….there, a piece of flimsi covered in scratched out scribbles and half-formed sentences.

“Princess,” it read, “I found this and thought ~~of you~~ you’d like it. ~~You were so frustrated the other day about not having a hair clip~~ I figured you’d need something to keep that mane off your shoulders. Try to live a little sometimes, yeah?”

The rest of the note was obscured by smudges of engine grease, and cloudy splotches of what may have been blood…but Leia carefully folded the flimsi and tucked it away in her pocket. After a moment, she moved her hands to her braids and unpinned them, sliding the hair clip into place and the braids into a different configuration, one only recognizable to people from Alderaan. 

_Oh Mama,_ she thought, her fingers smoothing one last time over the hair clip where it rested on the back of her head. _You would have liked him. Papa would have tried so hard to scare him away without actually doing so, but you would have liked him._

~~~~~~~~~~

Weeks later, after Tatooine, after Endor, Leia found Han sitting on her side of the bed in their quarters, his eyes narrowed at something he held in his cupped hands.

“You found it,” he said softly, with wonder in his voice. “I thought it was lost on Bespin.”

She circled the bed and saw the hair clip in his hands. “You left it in your jacket on my quarters on _Home One_. I found it after– after Bespin.”

“That’s….that’s good. I’m glad.” The look on his face was hesitant. “Did you like it?”

She smiled, her fingers finding his and enclosing the hair clip between them. “I did. The design is Alderaanian, you know.”

He stared at their entwined fingers for a startled moment before pulling one hand free and wrapping his arm around her. “I was pretty sure. The junk dealer I bought it from didn’t really have a clue, but I recognized it from an Alderaanian cruise ship I saw once. I figured if nothing else, it would be something pretty for you to wear, though I know it’s nothing like what you were used to–”

She kissed him. “Han. Thank you.”

He grinned, slow and easy, showing echoes of the smuggler she met in the Death Star. “Anytime Princess.”

**Author's Note:**

> [My tumblr is here.](http://starbirdrampant.tumblr.com) Come say hello!
> 
> If you would like to send in a prompt of your own, just let me know what it's for so I don't get a random ask out of the blue!


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